444 TKAXSACTIONS AXD PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lix. 



Forests, had associated Cleghorn with him in his duties in 

 1864. He was now in Europe, partly for health, but also 

 to inaugurate the initial stages of this new departure in 

 Indian administration by obtaining European candidates 

 for its service, trained in the Imperial Eorest systems of 

 Erance and Germany. Whilst Brandis remained for a 

 year on furlough, Cleghorn returned to be sole chief of the 

 department. On retiring to Madras in April 1867, the 

 temporary Inspector-General received the thanks of the 

 Government of India for his long and successful labours in 

 the cause of Eorest Conservancy in India. In a previous 

 resolution from the same quarter, he had been designated 

 in 1865 as the founder of the movement. Thus, when 

 Cleghorn retired from active work in India in 1870, the 

 small seed had grown into a mighty tree. By " persuasion, 

 patience, and perseverance " there had been secured a 

 reserved forest area of 46,000 square miles, a net revenue 

 of £300,000, and a capitalised value of the great forests, 

 else doomed to destruction. At an expense, something 

 like £190,000 per annum, a staff of some hundreds of 

 officers now actively engage in reducing droughts and 

 famines to a minimum — indeed, in keeping all India, 

 within the solstitial line, from becoming an inhospitable 

 desert like Northern Afghanistan. 



Dr. Cleghorn's remaining years in Britain as in India, 

 were spent in constant travel. With the hours of day and 

 week systematically apportioned equally to public aud 

 private duties, his weeks were as systematically devoted 

 to business visits to St. Andrews, Cupar, and Edinburgh, 

 varied by periodic journeys to the India Office in London, 

 in pursuance of his duties as confidential adviser to the 

 Government in the selection of candidates for the Indian 

 Forest Service. He loved his young men. Years after 

 18 70 — when a class of seven forest aspirants, then driven 

 into Edinburgh by the Franco-Prussian war, studied 

 petrology with me — he would stop on the street to tell of 

 recent Indian intelligence regarding them, one having shot 

 a tiger, or another trapped an elephant. A splendid group 

 of men has resulted from his twenty years' selection. May 

 I instance Professor Fisher, of Cooper's Hill, who has just 

 issued, as vol. iv. of Dr. Schlich's Manual, a valued treatise 



